These Dead Waters Stir: Salt and Sanctuary Launches March 28th on PSVita!

We launched Salt and Sanctuary one entire year ago on Playstation 4. Our dreary, heavily Souls-inspired 2D action RPG was incredibly well received, and while we’ve been overjoyed and overwhelmed by the range of emotions your feedback held — excitement! Frustration! Enthusiasm! Rage! — we felt your resounding reminder of a promise we made in our very first trailer: that Salt and Sanctuary would come to Playstation Vita.

We’re Ska Studios, a two-person husband and wife studio that lives somewhere around Seattle, and Salt and Sanctuary is our fourth major game. Salt and Sanctuary is our studios’ heartfelt love letter to the Souls series: a 2D platforming dark RPG that seeks to capture the danger and mystery of a haunted, unforgiving world, the freedom of exploration and customization, and the weight of your choices meaningfully impacting each playthrough in significant ways.

Would you believe we originally were aiming to launch on Vita and PS4 at the same time? After all, a complex, deep, ARPG like Salt and Sanctuary would be a perfect fit for Vita. We may have been overambitious — reckless even! But we think the wait will be worth it, and we hope you’ll agree when Salt and Sanctuary finally launches on PS Vita this coming Tuesday, March 28 for Americas and Europe with Japan coming soon.

Ska and Sickhead

Salt and Sanctuary for Vita marks the first Ska Studios title that… well… we didn’t make! That honor goes to Sickhead Games, the studio behind the console ports of Stardew Valley, Darkest Dungeons, Axiom Verge and more. Not only is Sickhead Games responsible for our Vita port, but they’re the ones behind MonoGame for Vita, without which Vita wouldn’t have received ports of TowerFall and Axiom Verge, which Sickhead also did. They’re as talented as they are overworked.

We had a small hand in the port: nudging some HUD elements here, tightening up the camera there, tweaking an effect or two when we needed to, but our contribution on the Vita port was pretty minimal. The fantastic, talented folks at Sickhead Games were the ones behind all of the low-level, nightmare-inducing logic that will make games like Salt and Sanctuary on Vita even possible.

Cross-buy, and thanks!

As promised, Salt and Sanctuary will be cross-buy across Vita and Playstation 4. If you bought it a year ago for Playstation 4, when it launches on Vita, you’ll already own it!

Of course, a big thank you to you for your patience and support. No game studio can survive without the respect of its customers, and the last thing we want is to feel like we’re letting you down. You’ve all been so awesome. Keep expunging heretics, making OP builds, doing naked level 1 runs, and abusing glitches. Above all, keep surviving.

I bought it on PS4 a year ago. And now I look on ps vita store page and they want to charge me again as if it was a separate game. So much for “cross buy” huh…. AHA! I guess it’s cross buy if I buy it again on vita. Then I’ll have both!

Thank you so much James and Michelle. Words can’t describe how happy I am to hear this amazing news. I never gave up hope, but came close a few times after several of the other indie devs backed out on their promises to make Vita ports on their games (Hyper Light Drifter, Moon Hunters, Galak-z, etc.). You guys went above and beyond to keep your promise, and I wouldn’t have hesitated in a heartbeat to pay for Salt & Sanctuary a second time to get it again on my Vita along with my PS4 one I already have. The fact that you guys also kept your word on the cross-buy support as well just speaks to your dedication to your fans and the world of gaming. You guys are obviously true gamers as well as developers, unlike a lot of other devs who’s sole purposes are to simply rake in as much money as possible from their software. You guys are true pioneers and set a perfect example of what an exemplary indie developer should aspire to be like, and for that I commend the two of you. Please give my heartfelt thanks to Sickhead Studios as well for their work on doing the porting over, they are a phenomenal studio for doing great indie game ports over to the Vita, and the amazing work they do gives me hope that more devs could have the potential to port their games over as well. Amazing job all around for everyone involved!!! Keep doing what you all do best and you will have our unwavering support! Next goal: win PS Vita GOTY 2017!!!

Thanks so much, guys. We Vita-heads are a zealous lot and I really appreciate everything you and Sickhead must have gone through to make this a reality. I’m already planning to double-dip with PSN next week and the Limited Run edition whenever that comes down the pike. Viva la Vita!